The 5 Red Balls Optical Illusion

How many red balls can you count in this photo below? Take a brief moment and count before you continue. Did you say there were five red balls? Are you absolutely positively certain? Recount again. Can you see another? Look closer. Are you positive there are only five balls? The longer you look at the photo and try to figure it out, the more surprised you’ll be when I reveal the optical illusion it hides. How about this for a hint! Didn’t help? How about another hint… Admit it, you never thought the answer was right there in front of your eyes the whole time. If you enjoy this type of optical illusions, be sure to head over and watch the Awareness Test video. Thanks goes to Deceptology blog for bringing this to my attention!

Notice how many red balls are there in this photo?

321 Replies to “The 5 Red Balls Optical Illusion”

  1. I’m only counting 5 red balls. Am I missing any?

    I’ve counted twelve times, and I only see 5 balls.

    1. the idea is that you are so busy counting the balls you don’t notice the guy has an extra finger.

  2. Saw it pretty quickly and without the clues. But saw it because i knew there had to be something wrong… otherwise maybe i wouldn’t have noticed it.

    1. SPOILER ALERT!!

      They want you to waste your time counting the dots…check the fingers :)

      SPOILER ALERT!!

  3. I was noticing his right pinkie (left as we see it) but if i hadnt seen the clue (i saw the first one) i would never figure it out i think

  4. well he has 6 fingers on each hand but I don’t really think that this is a very good illusion if that’s all there is…

  5. It’s not really about the balls, but it does have to do with counting. I actually got it right away before the hint. Something just looked a little…excessive.

  6. WOW I Just Noticed BAM hit me in the face Now I feel kinda stupid since I didn’t notice for a long time Wow this is a good one

  7. don’t get caught out by the miss direction, there are no balls, but there are 5 red spots!

    btw the real illusion was pretty easy to spot, especially when you realised that counting balls wasn’t going to help :)

  8. I see the hidden secret, but still only 5 red balls. Unless you count what looks like a little dry blood on one of his fingers.

    1. I think the dude has a bunch of warts on the palm of his left hand. See 1st. photo.

  9. So is the “illusion” here that the guy has polydactyly? Because I saw that right away. I was able to see the extra fingers despite looking for red balls. I’m not getting this.

    1. spots? Balls? when it’s the….. Why the wild goose chase? Why not say “see anything peculiar?” for example.

  10. Sorry, I don’t understand. You asked how many balls, not how many finxxxx. Latters are 12. Formers are 5. Wht is wrong?

  11. There are 5 (five) balls. You aren’t asking how many fingers the man has, are you? That’s a cool illusion, but the title is wrong.

  12. OMG. LOL. I love this one. this is my favorite. mostly because of the comments. there amazingly funny after you understand.

  13. I saw it right away when I first saw picture….but kept looking at what I was told to I was convinced that what I thought was a separate issue to the illusion.

  14. The question about the balls is a diversionary tactic to distract you from what is really unusual about this picture. Look beyond the balls.

  15. The grammatically incorrect question is “Notice how many red ballls are there in this photo?” This is not an illusion. The question merely moves your attention away from what’s really “hidden” in the poorly photoshopped picture. So those of you struggling with how many balls are in the picture, yes, there are 5.

  16. It has nothing to do with the balls. The man has 6 fingers on each hand. That is a retarded “illusion” since there really IS no illusion here. You tell someone to count how many red balls there are and that’s what they are going to do.

    I wonder how many people knew the man had 6 fingers on each hand and were still trying to figure out how many balls were supposed to be there after counting only 5.

  17. I feel cheated! Eventually noticed the fingers, but feel it’s beside the point. The text makes such a fuss about the number of red balls, and it turns out I was right all along!

  18. Counted five the first time, started reading your comments and counted again, still five. then I looked at the image and counted 12.

  19. That one is silly. If there are more than five Red Balls then they are hidden inside something, like concentric circles. I want some one to tell me where there are more than five Red Balls, and I did see the Moonwakling Bear and counted 13 passes, so I’m not an idiot.

    1. Is this supposed to just be a distraction from the fact the two hands belong to two separate people? I don’t understand the purpose of saying how many balls are there and then put something in the picture that is odd, like two hands that couldn’t be his, because they are facing backwards. If it’s a Moonwalking bear thing then label it Deception or how observant are you, or something, but to just say how many balls are there and then to see if people see the hands, is kinda lame if you ask me.

    2. there r only 5 red whatevers u wann callem but he has 5 fingers on each hand plus his 2 thumbs

    3. Okay, I got a clue from another comment…and because it IS a little difficult for some of us (even though there are those who thought it was clever to put “I count 12”) I will go ahead and spill the secret: There ARE 12…..DIGITS!! He has 6 digits on each hand!! And in hint 1: there are only 4 digits. In hint 2: the “monkey paw” has 6 digits. So there you go. Now you know.

  20. This isn’t really an optical illusion. It’s actually inattentional blindness. You’re able to perceive the balls and their sizes and colors perfectly fine, but it’s because you’re focused on them that you may miss something else. Kind of like “spotting the gorilla.” The gorilla’s not an optical illusion, but you miss it because you don’t attend to it.

  21. Wow, that is misleading. For those who can’t get it, here’s anonther clue: Look beyond the red balls.
    Hope it helps

  22. I suppose I am one of those people that always step back and suss out the environment of things before tackling the perceived problem and in doing so (just looking at the picture and what it is whats going on etc and ignoring the splots) there was obviously an issue that had nothing to do with red splots.

    This illusion is a very good example of the old proverb “cant see the woods for the trees”.

  23. why cant you fags just tell the other people who cant find it…itskinda hard to see just look in the center you can barley see it

  24. Not sure this qualifies as an optical illusion, as there really are only five “balls.”

    The “illusion” is that you are not supposed to notice that he has six fingers on each hand.

    It is like asking how much a gallon of gasoline costs, then saying “wrong, the truth is that it takes longer to fill up your tank!”

  25. There is one more illusion, if you concentrate on the dot on the right eye, the small red dots on either sides disappear alternatively

  26. Well, there really are only 5 red ‘balls’ but you’re probably refering to the fact that the man in the background suffers from polydactyly. Which off course has nothing to do with the five red circles…

  27. The only twelve i see are fingers, and red circles are 5. If balls is meant to refer to his fingers, then the word choice is horrible. The fingers don’t even appear to be red, yet there are 5 -dimensional representations of balls. Poor grammar i guess is the ollusion

  28. Well what the!!!!!!! I saw the odd thing, but I thought it was about balls! & it’s NOT, so what was the point in asking how many there where

  29. I defy anyone to point out more than 5 red balls or circles. Anyone? Anyone? Yes, there are too many fingers, but that wasn’t the question, was it? In fact, the remarks went on and on about how sure we were that we could only count 5 red balls.

  30. I wasn’t aware that the good ol Misdirection and Photoshop combo was an illusion…

    The first clue? Those are NOT balls…(Is that the strange semantics that was supposed to justify the ‘trick’??

    Yeah…10 and 2. *shakes head* Photoshop REALLY has ruined the true idea of illusion.

  31. So because the dude has 12 fingers that somehow means there are more than 5 red balls??? You’re lead up to this one doesn’t make sense. It’s like telling someone they’re having a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich for lunch but then you give them a Tuna Sandwich. See an optical illusion, but not the way you led into it.

  32. Balls are 5 alright. But I spotted 6 fingers on each hand… Before I read through the rest of the text.

  33. There are *no* balls, just some filled-in red circles, likely photoshopped. They look nothing like balls, either.

  34. HERE IS ANOTHER HINT THAT GIVES IT AWAY!!!!
    the illusion is not how many balls there are but something about the man.

  35. this is one of those illusions that separates the ones new to this site from everyone else, they count the red balls, we laugh and notice the 12 digits.

  36. i got it immeadietly, but i wasn’t sure if that was the illusion :D

    so i was looking through the clues, and then went onto the deceptology website thingy, and the clue at the botto explained that I HAD GOT IT RIGHT.

    that wasn’t a clue for anyone who wants to know…

    :)

  37. There are 5 balls and no optical illusion; he is real, is from Cuba and his name is Yoandri Hernández Garrido…

  38. No pude ver mas de 5 puntos rojos, pero claramente se ven dedos extras en sus manos.

    I didnt see more than 5 red spots,but i realize there is extra fingers on his hands….

  39. Stupid way to set up the illusion is you ask me (which you didn’t)

    If you count the red photoshopped circles as ‘balls’ there are five, and if you don’t there are none.

    You can mess around with the rest of the photo how you like, add in a Yeti fighting a Unicorn in the background if you want, but that’s still the answer to the question asked.

  40. all you people are saying “you got it”, yet none of you ficks are actually saying what it is that they got. hmmmm. LAME

  41. That’s stupid! The question is “How many red balls can you count in this photo below?” Not how many fingers! Since when is a Photoshopped pic an optical illusion?

  42. I can’t see any more than 5… But, did anyone notice he has 12 fingers? 6 on each hand. •_•

  43. How is it clever to ask how many balls and then say its to many fingers you should notice. I noticed the fingers but that was not the queston.

  44. I don’t get it. I saw what was wrong with the picture right away, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the 5 red balls.

  45. really?! there are only 5 dots/balls whatever you choose to call them. but duh count the fingers!!!!

  46. Don’t you hate that!!! 57 comments and no-one tells you how to figure it out. There are 5 red circles. End of Story??????

  47. There is no illusion here just deception. people are looking for balls and it’s not about the balls (circles) at all

  48. this was the most stupid thing ive ever seen oviously he has extra fingers oh my god STUPID AS HELL

    1. Really? That was the stupidest thing you have “ever” seen? You gotta get out more. There are plenty of WAY more stupid things out there.

    1. Yup, you’re missing the fact that he has two hands with six fingers each. So that makes him a guy with twelve fingers not six. You missed quite a lot.

  49. Dude, count his fingers xD I’m doing this for the desperate people u-u Still don’t know what’s up with ‘balls’ I mean..is that associated with fingers?

    1. The balls were supposed to distract you from noticing the extra fingers. That’s their purpose.

  50. Not really an optical illusion at all. No trick. No ahah moment. The dude has an extra finger on each hand and you don’t notice a first cause they look like normal fingers. You don’t see what you’re not expecting to see.

  51. The first thing I noticed is that he had aliens hands. 6 fingers on each hand. But I counted 5 balls.

    1. iys impossible that you counted 5 red balls. there are none. tere are only circles. but i do agree with 12 fingers.

  52. For anyone who doesn’t understand the illusion, the trick is that the their are no balls just circles. But people think that when they mention balls in the article, people think they are reffering to the circles. The illusion is to get people off gaurd and only focus on the circles rather than the other thinks in the picture, like the fact that there are six fingers on each hand. The picture is trying to prove that its hard to find somthing your not looking for. I hope this has helped! :)

  53. I got it, but when I did get it I didn’t think I had it right. Because the introduction placed so much emphasis on the red balls…it felt less like an optical illusion and more like a cheat.

  54. So I guess when it comes to illusion, it’s okay for the blurb to lie? I see the illusion, but it has nothing to do with the 5, and exactly 5 balls. The picture has an illusion, the writing has a deception, since the 5 balls have nothing to do with the illusion.

    1. That is the beauty, the deception. Focusing on something when there is more to see. American politics.

  55. this isn’t an illusion, it’s just misleading description.

    one does not simply ask on a math test, “what is the ancer to 2 + 3?” and say the answer to the question is “‘answer’ is spelled wrong”

    similarly, you don’t ask someone to count the number of red dots and say the answer is this guy has 12 fingers.

    yes, he has 12 fingers. that’s all there is to it. it’s not an optical illusion.

  56. stuuupid – soooo stuuupid if you were standing in front of me I’d give you the finger. hahahahahahahahaha

  57. He has 12 “fingers” but what’s that got to do with the number of red balls (which is only 5). Wouldn’t a better question have been how many fingers.

  58. Is this actually an optical illusion? An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The question is asked as to how many red balls (circles, whatever) there are. If you answer 5 balls you are of course correct. How is this an optical illusion? That he has 5 fingers on each hand is just that. It is reality. It isn’t an illusion and neither the photo or the balls have anything to do with each other.

  59. I’m sorry, either this is really stupid or I am.

    I noticed the fingers right away and then couldn’t figure out why the hell you’re asking how many balls… there are 5 right?

    WTH

  60. Dang, that’s not even right or left, HINT HINT!!
    pst!!!
    DONT
    Look
    ta
    teh
    balls
    look at
    teh
    hands

  61. I don’t get it. If the whole illusion is that he has six fingers on each hand, why the red ball/circle crap. I was truly hoping for something clever, not a joke about wasting time recounting red balls over and over again.

  62. Balls… Yeah.. that’s the optical illusion.. :)

    I had an uncle that had this “Unique-ness”

    He could type 20% faster than anybody.

  63. Damn.. I cant see any more red balls…
    but I saw some weird things….
    This man has Six fingers in both hand.

  64. This is pretty lame, it’s not an optical illusion. ***Hint spoiler: It has nothing to do with the red circles, the text is very misleading and poorly written, look at his fingers**

  65. Thought it was about the number of balls? Turns out it’s not and I counted correctly all along. I feel cheated!

  66. It has nothing to do with the balls so the text is very misleading. Forget the balls completely. It isn’t about the red balls at all. There are only five. Nothing hidden there. The illusion is something completely different.

  67. to anyone who still doesn’t get it, try watching the TV show “Fringe”[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7J8opV5vCt0/TvL0HO0T8TI/AAAAAAAAAFU/FMFeuXJ7xa4/s400/fringe-hand-wallpaper-by-jsky7.jpg[/img]

  68. I see it but kinda dumb because the balls have nothing to do with it.
    But the funny thing is seeing how some people are so full of themselves…”I saw it right away”! Get over yourselves.

  69. OMG ppl its the fingers not the balls or circles….there are 6 fingers on both hands….the red balls/circles are just to mislead you into looking 4 more red balls/circles LMAO wow

  70. I Mean Twelve Fingers, Not Six… I’m A Total Geek. Anyways, I Thought The Description Was Weird. Five Balls, Possibly Representing Five Fingers? Although, Being A Leftie (Which Means I’m Illogic) I Found The Illusion Straight Away Without Reading The Whole Desciption. LOL. :P

  71. I showed this photo to my students and then I showed them the attached awareness test video. This was wonderful! Not exactly an illusion, but it was a great example of how important it is to be open minded and not just search for the answers you are looking for.

  72. Sigh… Guys, the point is that when you are asked to count the number of balls, you don’t pay attention to other stimuli. Remember the moonwalking bear on the basketball court? Same thing. You’re asked to focus on something, you don’t perceive anything else.

  73. WOW! I thought I would never get it! All these comments talked about the fingers but that is not the optical illusion. When you stare at the balls, the top left ball begins to disappear! So it can sometimes be 4 or sometimes 5 as you see it already… YAYYY!!!

  74. I think the red balls is an attempt to try and distract you from the fact that he has 12 fingers.

  75. woohoo congrats you have two extra fingers. my dad was born with two extra fingers but got them removed. you can look closely at his hands and see tiny stubs.

  76. i dont get it, people said he has six fingers on both hands witch is true …… but what dose that have to do with the illusion???????

  77. hi all on this ab fab website
    THE ANSWER IS SO SIMPLE AND OBVIOUS TO THE TRAINED EYE THE INDIAN MAN HAS 5 FINGERS AND ONE THUNB ON THE RIGHT HAND THE 5 FINGERS AND 1 THUMB ON THE LEFT THE BALLS ARE JUST A MIRAGE TO HIDE THE FACT THAT THE INDAIN MAN HAS IN TOTAL 10 FINGERS AND 2 THUMBS
    BTW PEOPLE A THUMB IS NOT A FINGER ITS A DIGIT AND ITS A THUMB! HAVE A GREAT DAY AND HAPPY EASTER TO YOU MR V. TO YOU AND YOUR LOVELY FAMILY I DO LOVE YOUR WEBSITE IMMENSELY I DO WISH YOU ALL THE BEST AND THE SUCCESS YOU DESERVE FOR A VERY GOOD AND INFORMATIVE WEBSITE YOU AHVE PROVIDED TO US TO VIEW YOUR A TRUE ARTIST KEEP UP THE AB FAB JOB MR V. AND GOD BLESS AND HAPPY EASTER AGAIN LOVE ALWAYS YOUR CANADIAN FRIEND
    MS NADIA ALLI

  78. why are people trying to sound like big asshole smart ass .. this whole thing is fucking dumb to begin with

    1. this is a reply to TEA this a clean non profanity website. why do you come on this ab fab and great website speak such garbage you should wash your mouth out with soap and clean it good. your mouth is worst then a filthy sewer. why are you on this site in the first place and then critize a great optical illusion are you mental disturbed? not taking your meds at night? your very dirty your mouth is. god your filthy! dont go this website and speak ignorance i suggest you take your meds and it will calm you down!

  79. final thing ppl: the dude has 12 fingers and there r 5 balls. fingers arent balls, theyre fingers. the intro says nothing about any fingers.

  80. Believe it or not, people 5 fingers is not supposed to be the “norm” it is. 6 fingers per hand is the dominant Mendelian genetic trait. Which means it should show up more often than it does. The rest of us all have 2 copies of the recessive trait of 5 fingers per hand.

  81. It’s known as misdirection, this image doesnt count as an “illusion” as it doesnt use suggestion or misdirection, it simply asks how many red dots there are, the fast that he has an extra finger on each hand is completly irrelevant.
    also for the record, he has total of 10 fingers and 2 thumbs.

  82. A thumb is not a finger so we only have 8 fingers. the doofus with the so called “12” fingers, has only ten.

  83. Wow in truth its just a title illusion.It said 5 red balls.But the real illusion here is that the guy had 12 fingers. ^_^

  84. The question is how many red balls we can count. We only can count the balls that are there. One of the main properties of a ball is that its round.

    We see 4 red round cirkels. This must be the balls we are looking for.
    There is also a red dot, the biggest one, which is not perfectly round. Looking closely reveals that is consist of tho red balls covering each other. One is slightly bigger than the other.

    We can see 5 red balls complety and from one ball we can see enough to know for sure that it’s there. So we can ‘count’ 6 balls in total.

  85. this is the third picture i’ve seen on this site, and the 3rd where the perosn has 6 fingers per hand

    1. I find this riddle a bit stupid because they don’t conceal the fact that you have to find something weird in the photo, they just ask you to count the red balls.

    2. there are eight red ball for there are three extra ones in the top three

  86. I saw the same as the other two but I think it’s some sort of a game because in one of the red circles theres red lines arond it like youd see in a shoting game

  87. You guys are missing the point – the illusion is not an optical one, but rather it is one of the mind. There are only five red dots, but that was not the object of the observation. The original intent if for you to observe the 12 fingers, not the five dots. The poster was trying to convey that people get so caught up in trying to find a specific answer to a specific problem that they forget to observe all of the other things that are unique about their given situation. Cheers, mates! =)

    1. yeah but we don’t really care if there are six fingers. The guy in a gorilla suit was different, because we weren’t being told (or strongly suggested towards) something that wasn’t true.

      Maybe you are the one missing the point Truth. There’s no optical illusion here and I was not in any way surprised. We were looking at the detail of the red circles and nothing else.

      People often have to focus on one thing and simplify it to try to answer a question. So no, this image didn’t “convey” anything at all to me.

    2. I think that the 12 fingers was supposed to be obvious and the illusion was your disbelief that you counted the 5 dots correctly, the first time. Anyways, it seems that most people have found the fingers. Lesson: don’t doubt yourself.

  88. how many red balls you find? are you sure there were five red balls?

    Recount again. Can you see another? Look closer. Are you positive there are only five balls?

    —–
    yes there were only five red balls! we don’t care how many fingers he have. you brought us that red ball topic, stick to it! you insist that we’re counting it wrong, telling us to recount again? -_-“

  89. This is about drawing you in into clicking more of the links for the hints. Which increase the advertising revenue. The six fingers thing I guess makes the image much more “interesting” and probabaly makes you more likely to think that you are “missing and circle”, as the image has a “quality of strangeness” to it, which is hard to pin down.

    Good stuff.

  90. If you look at it long enough a dot disappears…least that’s what I got. The “Hints” were crap though!

  91. I first only saw five ball. After the hint, I chuckled when I saw five balls and twelve fingers..lol Then I saw ten balls and twelve fingers. he he he

  92. Read the instructions again. They say “you’ll be surprised at the optical illusion it hides.” That’s the kind of an illusion it is–a hidden one when you’re staring at what you think will be the optical illusion.

  93. There is still
    no
    optical
    illusion.

    “You guys are missing the point – the illusion is not an optical one, but rather it is one of the mind.”
    You know what that’s called? Not an illusion.

  94. The question was how many balls? there are 5 . It doesnt matter that he has 12 fingers or 12ft penis. The questions isnt relevant to that.

    THERE ARE 5 Balls. Now ask a proper question

  95. I don’t care how many effing fingers he has, that’s not the effing point. there are only five dots, that’s it.

  96. If you stair at his mouth you will only count 3. The other 2 are in your blind spot.
    He does have 10 fingers and 2 thumbs.
    jack

  97. I just knew that something did not look right! The thing is that you are too busy counting the red balls that you don’t relise that he has an extra finger!! I did not understand the hint when Iooked at it but then I saw the hand with the extra finger!! Good illusion! ;)

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